Tuesday, August 28, 2007

A lot can happen in a year...

Even in RL. In SL, where things seem to happen so quickly, how much more so.

Yesterday was my first rez day (the SL equivalent of birthday, the anniversary of the day one first goes on the grid). I've already posted about how my appearance has changed over time, but that's certainly not all that's changed.

When I first arrived in SL, and for a fair time thereafter, 20,000 users was a peak daily number. Nowadays, it's typically a daily minimum.

The average frame rate has gone up with time... of course, that might be partly because SL provoked me to get graphics hardware better than the nVidia 4000 and 4400 cards I'd been using. One reason I don't call SL a game is that I'm no gamer, and I like SL... but SL certainly uses graphics resources (and RAM, and CPU cycles) the way a game does.

When I was first in SL, I don't think that a million had signed up yet. That's certainly changed, and I've been told a time or two by new residents that I've been in SL a long time. Who, me? There are people who've been here from the start, years longer than I have!

A year ago, while I was happy that LL was enlightened enough to provide a Linux client, it couldn't display video, and LL hadn't taken advantage of the many eyes that Open Source status provides to software. That's changed now, and we have the open sourcing of the client to thank for bug fixes and enhancements, as LL has recently formally recognized.

I'm hoping that some major improvements will occur well before my second rez day... but all that aside, the most important thing about SL for me has been the friends I've made, people I'd never have otherwise met. *hugs* to you all.